Good Soldiers follow orders
by Darth Pancake
Summary: Good Soldiers follow orders... but at what cost? Rated T for darkness
1. chapter 1

**I don't own Star Wars.**

Echo was a clone. Clones weren't supposed to have moality problems. Or, they weren't supposed to have _morals._

Echo had never struggled with this before. He was a good soldier.

 _Good Soldiers follow orders._

And so, when he was sent to Ryloth alongside Rex and Fives to reinforce General Windu, he thought it would be a standard, by the books assignment.

He was wrong.

The squadron to which he had been with hit a land mine, at a fork in the road.

 _Good soldiers follow orders._

Echo had been thrown from the road, landing on the dirt. The rest of his squad had been incinerated.

 _Good soldiers follow orders._

Once he had regained conciousness, the Arc Trooper had duitfully followed the original plan, which was to secure a nearby village for important intel.

 _Good soldiers follow orders._

Echo reached the village in the next hour, and made short work of most of the droids. Except for one.

A tactical droid had kicked down the door to a hut, with a little girl in his arms. A little twilek girl.

The droid revealed the stakes to the Arc: let him go ot he kills the girl. The intel Echo was after was downloaded in him, but if plasma even scorched the droid's outer shell, it would self destruct, taking the intel and the whole village with it.

 _Good soldiers followed orders._

His orders were to get the Intel, no matter the cost. So what was the problem?

Echo only saw one solution to the problem, and he refused to carry it out.

Echo could shoot the girl, and the droid would stumble. Afterwards, Echo would tackle the droid and snap its neck, securing the intel.

 _Good soldiers follow orders._

He wouldn't do it.

 _Good soldiers follow orders._

The girl stared at him fearfully, tears in her eyes.

 _Good soldiers follow orders._

A ringing in his ear, a voice that sounded like the chancellor, in his head...

 _Good soldiers follow orders._

Good soldiers follow orders.

Echo squeezed the triggor.

Time slowed down.

 _Good soldiers followed orders._

The blast raced forward-

 _Good soldiers follow orders._

It was about to connect to the target-

 _GOOD SOLDIERS FOLLOW ORDERS._

He couldn't-

 _GOOD SOLDIERS FOLLOW ORDERS._

Echo's plan went exactly as he thought it would. The little girl slumped dead in the tactical droid's arms, who looked at it in surprise before backing away.

Echo tackled the bot and ripped off its head with a feral scream.

Afterwards, Echo held the small body in his arms, allowing tears to fall down his face until Fives arrived, asking what had happened, and Rex appeared, asking where he's been.

 _Good soldiers follow orders._

Echo was a good soldier. He had followed orders.

And he _hated_ himself for it.

 **I write a lot of dark stuff, huh? Don't forget to review and check out my other stuff.**


	2. Fives

**I still don't own Star Wars.**

Something was wrong with Echo, and it started on Ryloth.

The 501st legion had been pulled from Ryloth about a week after Echo's disaster with the tactical droid, meaning that for a week Echo had been very distant.

That wasn't like Fives' closest brother, and he was determined to figure out what had changed in Echo since the "incident".

Alone in his quarters onboard the _Resolute_ , Fives examined what he knew. Echo had been sent with a small team through a rocky area on Ryloth's eastern continent to sack a small seperatist listening post that was safeguarding secret intel regarding Wat Tambor's whereabouts.

Due to the lack of C.I.S. activity in the rocky area, Echo's squad had been traveling on the main road. Along the way, a landmine had gone off, killing most of the squad and throwing Echo off a small cliff. Echo had been knocked unconcious on impact, but awoke a few minutes later.

Due to the lack of time remaining before the Intel was moved, Echo had pressed forward and completed the objective, securing the intel.

So what was the problem? Was the bookish Arc Trooper upset about leaving the squad behind? Fives would have to get more details on the squad's condition from Kix later, but he seemed to remember two out of ten troopers surviving the blast.

Fives sighed and rubbed his temples, before hopping down from his bunk and putting on his helmet. He would just go to Echo and solve it that way. He would be less crude this time though. Last time he had tried to ask Echo, a few days ago, the Arc had simply walked away and locked himself in the 'fresher, causing a scene abd making Hardcase blow up the door.

As he walked away from the officer's barracks, he turned on the recording he took of Echo when he first got to the village.

It played by for a few minutes before the recording stopped. Then Fives replayed it. This time around, he noticed something he didn't before. Echo was crying.

That in itself was a problem, as clones didn't cry. This had to be a first, right?

Fives was so caught up in the recording, he didn't notice the other clones in his way until it was too late.

Fives bumped into a group of clones, stumbling backwards and falling over. Fives groaned and switched off his HUD, standing up to see Rex, Denal, and Kix.

Denal burst out laughing, while Kix snickered behind him and Rex offered him a hand up. "You alright, vod?" Rex asked.

"Yeah," Fives muttered, taking the Captain's hand and hoisting himself up. "Just... distracted."

Rex gave him a small smirk that only he could do, before waving to his party and moving on down the hall. "Echo's in the armory, try and fix him!" Fives grinned for the first time in a week. "I'll try!" with a new sense of motivation, Fives took off at full speed towards the armory.

He just hoped Hardcase wasn't there with his heavy canon again.


End file.
